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EU Legal Databases Manual

Kyiv 2017

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Chapter 1

Official Journal of the European Union

Official Journal of the European Union is a promulgation gazette for EU law. It is published in two

main series, that is series L and C. Series L contains key pieces of EU secondary legislation, while

series C comprises less important documents. Both are published on (almost) daily basis in all

official languages of the European Union. Since the electronic version is binding in the same way as

hard copies it is worth to include all relevant information in this Manual. Official Journal of the EU

can be accessed at a dedicated EU law website at http://eur-lex.europa.eu .

At the landing page (Screenshot No 1) the Readers chose a desired language version. This takes

them immediately to the main EUR-Lex website (Screenshot No 2). A link to the Official Journal

can be found at the top of the left hand corner, once clicked on it will redirect to the site with a list

of most recent issues of the Official Journal (Screenshot No 3). Choosing one of them will take us

to its contents as in Screenshot No 4. Right over the main text the Readers have a list of languages

and formats in which a particular Official Journal is available. When we scroll down the entire issue

of the Official Journal is visible (Screenshot No 5) and titles of the legal acts are the hyperlinks

which – when clicked on – will open the text.

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Screenshot No 1

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Screenshot No 2

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Screenshot No 3

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Screenshot No 4

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Screenshot No 5

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Chapter 2

EUR-Lex Website

EUR-Lex website is the main database of EU legislation. It is the most important source of

information for lawyers, civil servants or anyone with interest in EU law. As noted in the previous

chapter of this Manual, this website hosts the Official Journal of the European Union. The landing

page offers a lot of options (See Screenshot No 5). For persons who wish to stay up-to-date with

developments in EU law the most useful section of the landing page is at the very bottom. It gives a

variety of choices and links to recently published: legislation (Screenshot No 6), international

agreements, EU case law (Screenshot No 7), COM and JOIN documents (Screenshot No 8), SWD

documents (Screenshot No 9), consolidated legislation (Screenshot No 10) and new proposals for

legislation (Screenshot No 11).

EUR-Lex website offers also tailor-made searches, should users require a particular legal act, a

judgment of the Court of Justice or a preparatory document. The starting point is the landing page

and the section titled: “Find results by”. For the purposes of this Manual the Author will use

Regulation 261/2004 on compensation for flight delays and cancellations. The easiest way to start is

to type on the landing page the generic number of the Regulation and the year in which it was

adopted (see Screenshot No 12). This will redirect to the next stage where we can access the

required legal act (see Screenshot No 13). A lot of useful information is also visible, including

reference to the Official Journal where this Regulation was published, a link to a consolidated

version and date of adoption. Clicking on the title of this Regulation will take the user to a section

where far more information is provided. As shown on Screenshot No 14, the text of the required

legal act will show at the bottom of the screen. The website gives an option to have multilingual

display available to those who wish to compare different language versions. Screenshot No 15

demonstrates such a multilingual display in English and in French. At this stage the user will find

all crucial information about the requested legal act. As shown on Screenshot No 82, at the top of

the page there is a green bar with links to, inter alia, information about this particular document

(Screenshot no 16), procedure that was followed for its adoption (Screenshot No 17) and

information about the linked documents (Screenshot No 18). The latter two are of particular

importance. The first provides access to timeline of the decision-making as well as different

versions of the legal act, from an initial proposal, through amended proposal to opinions submitted

by advisory bodies. The latter contains hyperlinks to adopted and pending proposals for revision,

consolidated versions (should a legal act undergo an amendment) and relevant judgments of the

Court of Justice. All this information is absolutely crucial for those dealing with law approximation.

EUR-Lex website offers also other types of searches. At the top of the landing page the users will

find links to the Official Journal, EU Law and related documents, national law, legislative

procedures (as shown on Screenshot No 19). In everyday approximation work the link to EU Law

and related documents is of particular importance. When touched on with a cursor it will open

further links to Treaties, legislation, consolidated legal acts, preparatory acts, case-law and others. If

the option: “Treaties” is chosen, it will open the site with the text of EU Treaties which are

currently in force as well as their previous versions (Screenshot No 20). By clicking on

“Legislation” the users will be given access to a search engine, to the Directory of European Union

Legislation and to recently published legal acts (Screenshot No 21). In the search engine legal acts

can be searched through keywords in the text or title, the reference number of a legal act

with/without selection of type of legislation (Screenshot No 22), author of a legal act, date, CELEX

number, reference to publication in the Official Journal or a legal basis in the EU Treaties

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(Screenshot No 23). The other option available (see Screenshot No 21) is access to directory of

EU Legislation as demonstrated on Screenshot No 24).

For civil servants working on law approximation it is essential to follow changes in EU law on

regular basis, in particular new proposals for revision of existing EU secondary legislation or

simply proposals for new EU secondary legislation. This is very easy to do and should not take

more than a few minutes per day. The starting point is the landing page of the EUR-Lex website.

The cursor should be moved to the top bar, section “EU law and related documents”. A number of

options will be available, including “Preparatory acts” Once clicked on it will redirect the Reader to

the main page dealing with preparatory acts (Screenshot No 25). From there the options are: search

engine for preparatory acts, Directory of EU preparatory acts as well as lists of recent COM, JOIN

and SWD documents. If number and year of a document is known the search engines at the bottom

of the page will be ideal. If one wishes to check most recent documents it is enough to click on one

of the five hyperlinks. For the purposes of this Manual option “COM Documents” was chosen and

provided information as on Screenshot No 26.

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Screenshot No 5

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Screenshot No 6

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Screenshot No 7

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Screenshot No 8

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Screenshot No 9

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Screenshot No 10

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Screenshot No 11

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Screenshot No 12

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Screenshot No 13

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Screenshot No 14

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Screenshot No 15

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Screenshot No 16

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Screenshot No 17

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Screenshot No 18

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Screenshot No 19

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Screenshot No 20

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Screenshot No 21

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Screenshot No 22

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Screenshot No 23

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Screenshot No 24

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Screenshot No 25

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Screenshot No 26

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Chapter 3

Website of the Court of Justice of the European Union

As noted in the previous chapter of this Manual, case-law of the Court of Justice of the European

Union is available at the EUR-Lex website. However, to stay up-to-date with jurisprudence but also

for the purpose of law approximation it is worth paying frequent visits to the website of the Court.

The address is http://curia.europa.eu

The landing page (Screenshot No 27) allows to enter one of the language versions of the website.

This redirects to the main page comprising links to information about the Court (left hand side),

search engine (middle of the page), most recent jurisprudence (further down the page) and Court

calendar (right hand side). For those wishing to learn more about the Court of Justice it is fitting to

explore the opportunities that the links on the left hand side of the main page provide (Screenshots

No 28-29). For regular updates on case-law the Court calendar is an ideal outlet. When the user

clicks on a particular day it opens a list of judgments rendered or opinions of advocates general

presented on that day (Screenshot No 30). It also provides information about hearings. On this site

case numbers serve as hyperlinks to the actual texts of judgments and opinions. For the purpose of

this Manual the Author clicked on case C-431/14P Greece v. Commission (see Screenshot No 31).

Curia website is also ideal if one wishes to have access to a particular judgment of the Court or

opinion of Advocate General. In fact, it is much more user friendly than the EUR-Lex website

presented in the previous Chapter of this Manual. If the user is aware of the case number and names

of the parties, then the search engine available at the landing page is a good option. To demonstrate

how to do this, the Author chose Case C-22/11 Lassooy v. Finnair (Screenshot No 32). It is enough

to type in the case number or/and name of one party and to click on “Search” button. Within a split

second the user has access to all relevant documents (Screenshot No 33).

In case the user is not familiar with case numbers or names or parties but is searching for

jurisprudence based on particular type of legislation the same search engine will also be of help. In

such a case one needs to click on , which will redirect to more search options as shown on

Screenshots No 34-35. In order to type in the number of a legal act it is necessary to click on

“Category”. This will open the possibility to type in the relevant information (Screenshot No 36.

For the sake of consistency, the Author of this Manual opted again for the already mentioned

Regulation 261/2004 on compensation for flight cancellations and delays. The search engine allows

to narrow the search down by, for instance, excluding pending cases, limiting the search to

judgments/opinions delivered in a particular period of time, to a subject matter and type of

procedure (Screenshot No 37). In order to proceed further it is necessary to click on one of two

“Search” buttons (one is provided on the top of the right hand corner, another one is at the bottom).

Results of a search will be displayed as shown on Screenshot No 38).

From the landing page one can also immediately go to all recent decisions of the Court of Justice of

the European Union. It is enough to click on one of the buttons at the bottom of the page. The

results will be displayed as demonstrated by Screenshot No 39).

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Screenshot No 27

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Screenshot No 28

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Screenshot No 29

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Screenshot No 30

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Screenshot No 31

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Screenshot No 32

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Screenshot No 33

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Screenshot No 34

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Screenshot No 35

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Screenshot No 36

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Screenshot No 37

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Screenshot No 38